Global computer networks, or wide area networks, such as the Internet or World Wide Web (“WWW”) have provided new opportunities for marketing goods and services. Indeed, marketing on a wide area network can allow greater exposure of goods and services to consumers than traditional marketing techniques, and can provide such exposure for minimal costs.
To locate specific goods and services, a user must locate the specific computer address, or specific uniform resource locator (“URL”), wherein the goods and services are advertised. Thus, marketing directly to a URL is effective only if users frequent the locator. To increase the number of users exposed to information regarding a product or service, information providers, such as companies, utilize a multitude of direct marketing techniques. One popular direct marketing technique is to directly solicit users via the user's electronic mail. In this regard, an information provider can track the number of users that receive the advertisement. Further, an information provider can offer its products and services to a broader consumer base as it is relatively costless to conduct this type of a marketing campaign.
Because electronic mail marketing has proven to be an invaluable manner of successfully marketing products and services, the number of advertisements each individual user receives has increased so dramatically that users often receive more advertisements than personal messages in their electronic mail each day. As this problem has increased in severity, laws have been enacted to strictly govern the manner in which unsolicited electronic mail can lawfully be transmitted to a user. Indeed, current law requires that permission for such transmissions be received from the user prior to the transmission of the unsolicited electronic mail.
Current solutions to the issue of requiring permission to transmit unsolicited electronic mail involve confirmation with the user that the request is valid. These solutions are commonly known as double opt-in. Although these solutions are useful, they do not prevent fraudulent requests, especially a fraudulent initial conformation of a request, wherein the original fraudulent request is simply confirmed by the same user who made the original fraudulent request.
Further, although information providers can easily transmit all of their advertising to every user on these networks, this type of undifferentiated marketing does not necessarily increase sales or the reputation or goodwill of the marketed company. Indeed, if consumers receive excessive advertisements for products or services, consumers will begin to ignore all advertisements, even advertisements that might be of interest to the consumer. Further, some products or services marketed via a mass marketing campaign may not be available in the user's location, and thus, the advertisement is unnecessary and a waste of the user's time.
To avoid unnecessary advertising to a user, information providers have attempted to direct or redirect users to appropriate data, or materials, based, in part, upon the user information transmitted with the user's request. In particular, concurrent with each request for data transmitted from a user computer to the provider computer, the user computer transmits an IP address which identifies information about the user computer.
Each IP address, or block of IP numbers, are assigned to a particular internet service provider (“ISP”). Similar to a telephone number, portions of this number can identify some information about a user based solely upon the identity of the ISP which received the number. For example, a telephone number having an area code of 212 identifies New York, wherein the same telephone number having a 213 area code identifies California, and more specifically, parts of Los Angeles. The IP address comprises multiple sets of numbers, wherein each set of numbers corresponds to particular information regarding the user computer. Indeed, regarding the IP address, the IP address can identify the country IP codes or country ISO codes by virtue of the location of the ISP that received the IP address. The country ISO code identifies the geographic region or area from which the user's transmission originated, thereby identifying the physical geographic region of the user. Identification of the country where the user resides is important information as it allows the information provider the opportunity to select information that may be more relevant to that particular user, or in some instances, legally available to the user in that identified region.
Currently, resources are available on the Internet for searching IP addresses. To obtain the user IP country information, the information provider must ‘look up’ the IP address. In the current system, databases exist that contain lists of IP addresses and corresponding information for each IP address, including, but not limited to, information directed to the geographic regions associated with the IP address, WhoIs IP information, the ISP assigned to that number, including the company name of the ISP and the electronic mail address for the ISP, the corresponding physical location of the IP address (city and country) and the domain name associated with the IP address. The current such databases include, but are not limited to, the following: arin.net directed to North America, South America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean; ripe.net directed to Europe; apnic.net directed to Asian Pacific; register.br directed to Brazil; and nic.mx directed to Mexico.
An information provider attempting to identify a country ISO code identified by an IP address must search each of these databases until the IP address is found and the code is identified. For each database search, the information provider must log into a resource web site containing the database and enter the IP address. A search engine coupled to the resource web site searches the database for the IP address and desired information. Typically, the database includes information other than the geographic information, and thus, the database is large. The size of the database increases the amount of time required to ascertain the desired information. Due to the separate and distinct locations of the information, an information provider may be required to search all of the databases to ascertain the desired information. In light of the time required to search each database, and the potential requirement to search all of the databases, the current system is slow and inefficient.
A need in the industry exists to increase the dependability of the verification of valid data requests and thereby decrease fraudulent data requests. A further need exists to increase the efficiency of ascertaining desired data from an IP address. A still further need exists to more appropriately market goods and services to users based upon the user's location.